Head or Heart? Hope or Faith?
“When an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside as fate.-Carl Jung”
It’s 7:15AM and I am still waiting at the bus stop for my daily commute to work. The bus was supposed to arrive five minutes earlier, but apparently the bus has been delayed. Normally, I would be frustrated, however, an hour earlier, I had decided to change my own perspective. I wanted to challenge myself in a new way. After challenging myself to have difficult conversations with loved ones and seeing the positive results, I had decided to challenge myself to another challenge. I decided that I was going to choose to expect the best in my life. Logically, this is a challenge. Thoughts such as “don’t expect the best, to avoid disappointment” or “you have always had just okay in this area-why can’t just being okay, be okay?” began to swirl, and I wondered, at this point in my life is my head or my heart the right decision maker?
For me, the problem with solely choosing thinking, and particularly this type of thinking, is that it doesn't require me to stretch myself and thus becomes an area in which I cannot grow. Growing is an important value of mine. As a healer, I feel that it is my duty to commit to growth-I cannot challenge my clients as part of their healing process if I am unwilling to do it myself. Also, the consequence seems to amplify with every situation that I encounter. It also reinforces tunnel vision which further students my growth. Knowing my values further deepens the inner situation as it forces me to consider a third decision maker, my soul.
So, the bus finally arrives and I am served another choice: do I get on the bus and hope that by some miracle I will make it in the office by 8am or do I go with my head and try to figure out another plan? My therapist usually tells me to “keep hope alive”, and a part of me really wants me to be able to hope. I want to hope, even if the outcome seems unlikely. However, I have found that just having hope is insufficient. Hope tends to keep me looking towards the future and disregarding the present. Depending solely on hope and what my heart yearns for, often keeps me attached to an outcome that may or may not occur and attaches emotional response that may or may not be desirable. It can be a force that if not tempered and balanced can lead someone to focus on the future, instead of the power that we have in the present. So, I decided to challenge myself to walk from a faith perspective.
Previously I used hope and faith interchangeably. However, faith and hope are just as different as mind, heart, and spirit. According to Merriam-Webster, hope is defined as “ a desire accompanied by expectation of or belief in fulfillment” whereas faith is defined as “complete trust and belief in someone or something” (www.merriam-webster.com). While both faith and hope require us to make a decision, faith gives us the freedom to believe that it is well today, and it will be well in the future, even if we may not feel or think that way at times.
So, back to the bus stop-Day 1 of my challenge required me to have faith-which, while spiritual, gives us space to give some weight to our logical and passionate sides as well. So, I started by engaging my mind. I thought of the seeds that I have already planted in my life-reflecting on the challenges that I have already faced.I have missed the bus before and everything turned out alright, even if it felt frustrating in the moment. I acknowledged my anxiety about being late to work and validated that experience so that I did not have to carry that feeling throughout the day. Then, I chose to grow-I intentionally trusted that things would work out, even though I still ended up being late to work.
This month, we will be further delving into ways to integrate our head, heart, and spirit so that we can have both faith and hope, and ultimately, peace. We are releasing tools on our website (Blog Fringe Fam) as well as discussing strategies during our Soulful Sunday sessions at Fringegram (Instagram) and Facebook. We hope that you can join us, but most of all we believe that you can reach that well, balanced life that you would like.
Be well,
Chante’